Jennifer Egan loves music just as much as her protagonists in A Visit from the Goon Squad. Westword, Denver’s alt-weekly, asked Egan what her five favorite songs are. The playlist includes everyone from Iggy Pop to Cat Power. We think Bennie Salazar would approve.
Rocking Out With the Goon Squad
Infographic: Summer Reads
This week in book-related infographics: Electric Literature has recommendations for summer reading, organized by location and required concentration level. Going to Italy? Try A Room with a View. Craving a tropical get-away? Read The Beach, obviously.
●
●
William Gass, 1924-2017
“He was a glutton for books who treated each text as a plate he was required to clean.” Author and critic William Gass died this week at 93, reports The Washington Post. The recipient of three National Book Critics Circle awards for criticism and four Pushcart prizes, Gass was awarded the PEN/Nabakov Award for lifetime achievement in 2000. See our reviews of Middle C, a novel that took Gass almost 20 years to finish, and his most recent essay collection Life Sentences, which amply demonstrated his background as “a former philosophy professor, but more appropriately a philosopher of the word and an esthete.” We were also lucky enough to have him pen a Year in Reading entry for us back in 2009: “I miss the leisure that let me read just for fun, not to critique, or pronounce, or even to put on a list, but simply to savor,” Gass lamented. Nonetheless, he continued,“I do, from time to time, pick up old friends who never disappoint but will promise me a page or two of pleasure between art and ordinary life.”
If Choices Were Wishes
“To survive, we learned to be great actresses. We cocked our heads just so, we laughed with just the right lilt, we batted our eyelashes and pursed our lips. Sometimes we were innocent, weak and in need of protection; other times we teased and tortured, until our customers raged for release.” Beautiful new fiction by Karissa Chen for Catapult.
●
●
The Neglected Nobelist, Neglected No More
Henrik Pontoppidan, the Danish novelist, won the 1917 Nobel Prize for literature. His masterpiece, Lucky Per, has never been available in English. Now – lucky for us – it is. Frederic Jameson reviews it for The London Review of Books.
●
●
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
The Book of a Young Girl
Anne Frank’s copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales is up for auction, including her signature on the book’s flyleaf. “This book really is the springboard from which her nascent literary career and dreams of being a writer were launched,” said Nicholas Lowry, president of Swann Auction Galleries.
●
●
New Story by Bobbie Ann Mason
Recommended Reading: “Whale Love” by Bobbie Ann Mason and Meg Pokrass.
Zuccotti Park: Day 10
An n+1 writer revisits Zuccotti Park to find Michael Moore reporting for MSNBC on the tenth day of the protest against financial inequity.
●
●
The Future of the Book (Studies)
Goucher College announced the creation of a new interdisciplinary minor this week. “Book Studies” will “explore the past, present, and future of the book,” according to the school’s administration. Regarding the “future of the book,” might we recommend our built-in syllabus?
●
●
Wow, Iggy Pop and Cat Power. So edgy and relevant. If you’re a soccer mom or an advertising exec living in a 1 million dollar condo in Manhattan.